Herbert, Nagel fly SA flag high in Finland

Mustasaari, Finland - Llewellyn Herbert and Morne Nagel, two of South Africa's top athletes, both recorded good wins at the annual Botnia Indoor Games on a full 400m track on Wednesday night.

In his first ever race on a 400m indoor track, Herbert did well to start the year with a time of 49.90sec. while Nagel took the honours in the 60m sprint in 6.60sec.

Herbert had another South African - junior, Wouter le Roux - as his main opponent and he also did well to finish second in a creditable 50.41sec.

Godfrey Khotso Mokoena, the world junior triple jump champion, also had a first taste of indoor athletics. He contested the long jump and was narrowly beaten - by one centimetre - by Kenneth Kastrem of Finland.

Their distances were 7.67m and 7.66m respectively.

The fourth South African at the meeting, Ruan de Vries, who like Mokoena and Le Roux also competed at Potchefstroom on Friday, found it difficult to adapt to the indoor conditions.

Running in two 60m Hurdles events he finished sixth in both with respective times of 8.43 and 8.04sec.

Robert Kronberg of Sweden won both races clocking 7.65 and 7.69sec.

Results:

60m: 1 Morne Nagel RSA 6.60sec, 2 Nnamdi Anusim NGR 6.67, 3 T Hartonen FIN 6.78.

400mH: 1 L Herbert RSA 49.90, 2 W le Roux RSA 50.41, 3 Jussi Heikkila FIN 50.59.

Long Jump: 1 Kenneth Hastrem FIN 7.67, 2 G Mokoena RSA 7.66, 3 P Toivonen FIN 6.97m. - Sapa